New ... wallhanger? Project Terminus

[markc74]

Announcing 'Terminus' - an arcade machine which will hang (by way of 9 seriously long screws!) onto my wall.

It's currently about half way through - the main frame is built, the CP and marquee area built and the monitor mount done - but as usual with these things there are about a hundred small jobs remaining so I'm posting it here to get some feedback and give myself a jolt to finish it sooner rather than later!

A few details...

- 2 plater 6 button main control panel
- Sliding second control panel with ultimarc trackball, turbotwist 2 spinner and 3 more buttons
- Rotating 19" LCD monitor
- Possibly light-guns - I haven't made my mind up yet!

Anyway, feedback or questions are very welcome and I'll post some more pics (of higher quality than these) over the coming days/weeks as it progresses

[Martijn]

nice complete idea! I especially like the drawer with the trackball coming out.
Will the drawer clamp somehow so that i wont move during play?

[CheffoJeffo]

Clever design -- I like the drawer for auxiliary controls.

 

[markc74]

Thanks for the feedback.

The drawer seems pretty stable when you pull it out but I suspect once it starts being used heavily then there may be some 'wobble'.  I think maybe some sliding bolts underneath the drawer securing it to the outer frame when either inside or fully extended will sort that out though.  I'll let you know when I get that far!

The plan so far is to have it all completed for Christmas which gives me a good amount of time to 'tweak' ideas to make them more workable.

So far the biggest pains have been the rotating monitor (works fine but bounces a little when it reaches the horizontal or vertical stoppers) and the angled marquee which I started by routing out a groove for but then it got so complicated I ended up buying marquee retainers instead.  Far easier!

[javeryh]

Very cool - are you automating the rotation of the monitor?  If so, how are you doing it?   

[fronty]

.

[markc74]

there's a toggle switch witch controls the rotation. If you switch it to the left (horizontal) then the motor rotates the monitor mount anti-clockwise until it hits a breaker switch which breaks the circuit and stops the rotation.

Push it right and it does the same the other way.

It works ok but when it hits the breaker switch of bounces a little bit so keeps on trying to rotate so I need to find a way of locking it when it reaches a certain point. I'm going to try magnetic catches but if anyone has any other ideas then I'll definately try them out! 

[IG-88]

Very nice!  I am in the design process of building one of these myself only not nearly so elaborate! I am curious on what the dimensions are and what kinda hardware & software you are using?

[XeviouS]

What a great space saver! Now just to push the boundaries a bit further again I reckon you need to put on a steering wheel that folds out from underneath the secondary control panel.......

[gonzo90017]

- Sliding second control panel with ultimarc trackball, turbotwist 2 spinner and 3 more buttons

Genius! 

[waveryder]

Amazing. Really inovative 

[markc74]

Cool idea - I'm really liking the idea of the steering wheel folding out from underneath! 

It's got a turbo twist 2 spinner on the bottom panel which I can attach the mini-racer wheel too for the odd game of super sprint but I'm sorely tempted to see if there's a way I could attach a 'proper wheel'.  Hmmm - I'll have a look at the model and see if I can add that later.

In terms of size - it's 64cm wide, 95cm high and 50cm deep with the lower cp retracted or 75cm deep when the lower cp is pulled fully out.

I'll post the plans up as PDF once I've got them in a suitable state.

Hardware wise, there will be an Athlon 5600 running with a pretty basic VGA card at the moment which I might upgrade next year so I can run the cool Model 2 stuff (nebula).  Sound is onboard connected to some Logitech x-140 speakers which provide a nice bit of bass.

Software is MAME .122, Nebula, Fusion (the usual suspects) running with the Mamewah frontend.

Any more questions please ask - I'll be spending some more time on it tomorrow so will post further pictures using a proper camera.

[polaris]

sorry to sound negative, but that marquee is no where near nice enough to be on that very nice cab

[kizer]

That pull out drawer Idea kinda solved a problem I was trying to come up with. I wonder if you could use the drawers out of something like this.
http://www.ncs-us.com/RK2Dkeyboard.htm

I have one of those metal keyboard shelf things that my monitor would sit on and you pull out the drawer and then it locks. You have to push in two small metal clips and then the drawer can retract.

[kizer]

Ok, more like this, but a single shelf
http://www.dalite.com/products/product.php?cID=26&pID=360

[dmworking247]

That sliding control panel is a very innovative idea, well done.

There are so many great ideas on how to maximize your controller options without a huge frankenpanel, but all of them have a compromise of some sort.

The main drawback of the drawer (pardon the pun), is that the trackball doesn't have any clearance for golden tee/bowling style games.

Just a thought, but could the trackball drawer slide out, then (at the back) be optionally angled upwards to give clearance over the main control panel?

[IG-88]

Just a bump to see how this was going?

[Spinach]

dmworking - great idea.  Along those lines I was thinking maybe having the drawer slide out then hinge up somehow to be flush with the original CP.  _OCP__ . ___o___  Like that.

I love this board, everyone trying to make the other person spend more time and money!

[markc74]

Hi - I've been off the boards for a while as I've broken my hand which makes building anything a bit tricky!

This has gone through a few iterations since I last posted.  I've decided to make it full-sized so it wont need to hang off the wall now and I'm also going for a much bigger screen so I'm relooking at the CP.

Basically, this version of Terminus is no more...

The current design looks like below ... but I'll post more in a couple of weeks when I've got the plaster cast off!

[thatitalian]

What are you doing with the actual costruction? I would be more then happy to take it off your hands! (I am serious by the way!)

I really like the drawer idea! Space saving is essential in a bartop!

Do you think the base is big enough in the new design? Or will it be attached to the wall in some way?